Since We Came Home
by Kristi
Summary: After Egypt, Evie, Rick, and Jonathan acclimate to their new lives, new opportunities, and new romances.
1. Part 1

A/N: You may want to read the outside intro, "Things Left Behind." 

"Since We Came Home" 

Part One 

When I come by the museum to take Evelyn to dinner, she's still bent over some artifact. The Bembridge guys tapped a helluva nice bundle out of Oxbridge's funds for the loot we brought back, but not without making Evie their cataloguing wench. Given her intent study over some giant crown-thing right now, I gather she isn't complaining. 

I wander around the museum for a while, mentally tallying up how much stuff would cost if sold to a carney barker in America, but eventually get bored and return to her office. I was going to bug her, make her huff and say "ooh" at me, which she does when she likes the attention. But she's surrounded by books and notebooks and stuff and muttering to herself, and she's adorable when she's like that. Her eyes get all wide like a kid who's just discovered sugar, and her bubble-gum lips dance around the syllables she's uttering to punctuate whatever's whirling around that head of hers. 

Go figure, me falling for a brain. She drinks tea every afternoon, for God's sake, like it's a ritual. She wears glasses and reads on Saturday nights instead of drinking herself stupid like normal people do. 

She's also a hell of a spitfire. I've seen her stand nose-to-nose with the kids from Oxford – boys in grownup suits who think she's some kind of secretary – and holler them off of their assumption of college boy privilege. I've obviously been a good influence on her. 

It's almost half an hour past our reservation and I'm not going to waste the new collar I bought for this night (even though, with my new wealth, I could buy enough collars to dress up all the mummies in Egypt). 

So on to my mission: Make Evelyn Shriek. I drop silently to my belly and crawl across the floor like we did in Germany. When I'm about three feet from her chair, she stops smacking the typewriter keys and cocks her head to one side. _Jerry is listening_, the memories from the trenches resurface. _The mission depends on you, O'Connell_. Her hands return to the typewriter. 

I'm just close enough now, I can almost reach her shoe . . . 

Something jabs me from above. 

"Hey!" I yelp. 

"Don't even think about it," Evie says. She's got the pointed end of one of those big protractors pegging down my shoulder, like a sword. "What do you think you're _doing_ down there?" 

"What're you trying to do, draw blood?" No way in hell I'm going to admit that I look like an ass on the floor of her office. 

"Oh, sorry," Evie says and moves the protractor. 

"I was gonna scare you." I mumble as I stand, rubbing my shoulder. 

"Sacrificing me to a mummy wasn't scary enough?" She smiles while she says it. 

"Oh, sure, lady, that was completely_ my_ fault. It's not like _I_ wanted to bug out of the country when Living Dead decided to –" 

She shuts me up by kissing me. I don't mind. I put my arms around her and hold on for a while. I love this unrestrained side of her. 

"Rick," she protests against my lips, "someone will see." She pushes me away. 

"And it's gone," I say. 

"What's gone?" 

"You never let me kiss you good and solid." 

She rolls her eyes at me, not even acknowledging what we both know, that that's a wild lie. Confidentially, I'm enjoying the high color in her cheeks. She's got these freckles that make her look sixteen years old when she blushes. 

"Not at the museum, when I've finally gotten the attention of the Bembridge Scholars." Evie says, busily collecting her coat and hat. "They'd just love me to give them the idea that I'm going to get married and abandon my career." 

"So, ready to go?" I ask. She lets me take her by the elbow and lead her out. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," she says sarcastically. "I know what that word does to you." 

"What word?" 

"The M-word. 'Married.' Honestly, you're cool as a cucumber in the face of carnivorous scarabs, but _that word_ puts ice water down your veins." 

"It's not my veins it dumps the ice water into," I grumble. She doesn't pretend to be shocked the way most girls would. I like that about her. I always thought the quiet ones were innocent, but it's like Evelyn stored up all the experiences and life a wallflower doesn't get to use, and she's spending all that energy on me. 

We exit the cavernous British Museum into the typically misty English night. If I'd known a month ago, when I was crossing a desert, what English weather was like, I'd have stored up all the sunshine I could. 

I hail a cab because I haven't decided yet if it's necessary or ridiculous to own a car. I find myself caught in dilemmas like that a lot since I rode out of Hamunaptra with a couple mil' in gold under my saddle. Do I buy the suit my tailor tells me is the newest fashion -- even though it looks stupid -- and wow Evie and her egghead friends at the cocktail parties? Or dress how I want and be ignored by the old money all night? 

Evie snuggles in beside me and wraps her arm around mine. "Where are we going?" 

"Dinner, dancing, maybe a picture about clichés," I rattle off. 

She twists in the seat to face me. "What's wrong?" She asks, genuinely concerned. 

"Nothin'." 

"Yes, 'nothing'," she says, "I can see that it's nothing by that scowl." She traces my brow with her fingertip, following the lines that must be there. I catch her hand and kiss her palm. 

"Nothing. It's just." I don't want to get her mad at me. 

"Yes?" 

"We always do you-stuff." 

"Me-stuff?" she says as if I'm speaking in tongues. One of the ones she doesn't know. 

"Y'know, stuff you like. Restaurants and . . . stuff." 

"I wasn't aware that you dislike eating in public," she says. I don't know if she's annoyed or confused. That snippy thing she does with her accent is confusing sometimes. 

"It's not the food," I say. "Well, okay, sometimes; that French squid stuff is weird. It's just . . . they're boring." 

"Our dates are boring?" Now I recognize that she's needling the inarticulate American. 

"No, not our dates," I say. "Our restaurants." 

She smiles the way she does when she's deciphered a new glyph. "I see. Well, Mr. O'Connell, if you know of a more interesting venue in which to locate our evening, by all means, please speak up." 

I grin and tell the driver to take us to her hotel. 

"We're going to my room?" she says, suspicious because she has yet to show me any part of her suite other than the sitting room. (Not that you can't have a little fun in a sitting room. Just not a lot.) 

"No, we're going somewhere fun," I tease her. I eye her tan skirt and white blouse. "But you need to change first." 

* 

Continued in part 2.   



	2. Part 2

"Since We Came Home"   
Part Two

Rick just told me "something gorgeous," which doesn't narrow much down. As I stare at the array of elegant, stylish dresses hanging in my armoire, I wonder how, in slightly more than a month, I became the kind of woman who can't decide which expensive, new dress to wear. The Oxford/Cambridge educational system – or rather its generous alumnae – waved its magic wand and granted me everything I could have hoped for, both professionally and economically. But I've discovered that getting everything I've ever wished for is, to say the least, a tad overwhelming. 

Jonathan has had no trouble easing himself into his new wealth. He was more than happy to leave Rick and me the chore of delivering the artifacts to England (and I was more than happy to be rid of his sticky fingers), and has spent the past month gallivanting all over the continent. His letters are postmarked from Spain one week; the next, Paris. His life has become one long party while the scenery of my life has remained largely unchanged. 

Except that I'm going with a dashing American adventurer. 

The girl who danced with her brother at parties, who went to co-ed study groups to study, who saw before her a content, predictable life spent splitting time between bookshelves and pottery shards. I never knew life could offer me such exhilaration! I never knew I had the constitution to escape a collapsing pyramid alive, or date a man from a world so utterly different than mine. He grew up on a farm, for pity's sake, and chose war over following a plow. He's an expatriate who spent years employing himself in any dirty, laborious job that could earn him a ticket to the next port of call. 

Stories about him trickle back to me; the men he's killed, the card games he's won, the women he's – But the professors' wives who cluck around the punchbowl at Bembridge functions don't know Rick as I do. It's true he was arrested, but not for stealing. (Although they would cluck just the same over a white man caught in an anti-colonialism rally.) While he may have loved women from California to Cairo, right now he loves only me. And though I know he went to Hamunaptra planning to blast as many glyph-covered walls necessary to find the Pharaoh's gold, he listens with interest when I narrate the lost history I discover on the scepters and pendants at work. 

Ours is a careful balance. But as Mother always said, anything worth doing takes effort. 

Which is why I've twisted my hair up three times now, trying to get it to stop looking funny in the back. Jonathan tells me all the women on the continent are "bobbing" their hair, and it saves them "heaps" of time. But there are some roads I will not tread in the quest to be fashionable. 

"Evelyn!" Rick booms from the other room. 

"Just a minute!" My words are sweet as _Ladies' Home Journal_ but my tone tells him I'll be out when I'm ready and not before. 

Rick wolf-whistles when I appear. I bought the dress in Egypt, a black, slinky thing of silk crepe that is shorter and scoops more in front than anything I had the nerve to wear before Egypt. The beads around my neck dangle to my waist; Indian onyx dangles from my newly pierced ears and my shoes are so beautifully delicate that they won't last more than an hour on the dance floor. The Evelyn of Before Egypt wouldn't recognize me – but she would be jealous. 

"Hey there, gorgeous," Rick says. 

"Hey yourself," I say. 

Rick dips and kisses me like in a silly romance picture. I love his attention, the way his eyes follow me even when my hair has suffered three straight days of desert wind. Let Hollywood darlings bedazzle in ropes of jewels; my fella's unwavering attention would make me feel elegant in sackcloth. 

I gather my purse, wrap, and things off the table and ask, "Where are we going?" 

Rick smiles wickedly. "Someplace you've never seen anything like before." 

I open the door to let my cat – a refugee from Egypt – wriggle out to patrol his territory. 

"Oh, really," I say, unimpressed. According to Rick and Jonathan, any place that isn't lined with bookshelves is new to me. Honestly, it isn't as if I've never been dancing before. 

* 

I am hit full-body by a wall of noise when we step inside the jazz hall. 

"_Hold your hats – the roof's about to crumble in! Me oh my, it's gonna be uproarious!_" the singer onstage howls into the microphone while the band behind him seem to rather wrestle than play their instruments. "_Hellzapoppin and you're invited to the party too!_" 

The music fills my head and blocks out all other thoughts. I can't see through the smoke from one end of the place to another. The smell of alcohol, tobacco, and sheer humanity fill my head. The assault on my senses makes me feel displaced. I grab Rick's arm so I don't get left behind as he leads us through the crushing crowd. We're soon surrounded in a sea of energy – people shouting over the music to one another, laughing, whooping with glee. I haven't experienced such chaos since Hamunaptra crumbled to rubble at our heels. 

"I see what you meant," I say. 

"What?" Rick hollers. 

"I wasn't expecting this!" I don't like having to shout but I quickly see that it's necessary. 

Rick elbows a path through the crowd towards the back of the hall and up a short staircase. Abruptly, the dense forest of people opens to a clearing of tables and chairs. A bar stretches down the side wall. The cacophony is reduced to a mere ambient howl. 

I suggest an empty table with a view of the dance floor below. We sit and Rick turns out the little electric table light. 

I scoot close to him so he can hear me ask, "Why did you turn it off?" 

"On means 'looking for action,'" Rick explains. 

"But there's two of us," I laugh. He raises an eyebrow at me. "Oh." Part of me wants to ask for clarification. Instead, I ask, "Why is there a phone on the table?" I notice that, curiously, all the tables have phones. 

"So people can call from one table to another. Allows for anonymous rejection." He's gauging my reaction, possibly to determine if this was a bad idea. 

"Oh how clever!" I look around a bit, taking in the music and the people. Now that the music isn't overpowering, I realize that, thought different from anything I'm used to, it is mostly inoffensive. From the populous but less active bar area, the hall seems lively and – I have to search for the word – fun. 'Fun' wasn't something I did very often before Egypt. 

"So what do you think of jazz halls?" Rick says. I can feel his warm breath on my ear. 

"It's a bit much," I say, "but it's interesting." 

"It's not supposed to be 'interesting,' it's supposed to be fun," he says with a twist of a smile. He's enjoying my culture shock, of course. 

"I like being 'interested.'" I nudge him and don't move away. Our legs are touching and my arm is draped across his; he's tracing the dips and rises of my knuckles, sending an electric charge up my arm. I'm starting to see the benefits of all this noise making close quarters necessary for conversation. 

"I know," he smiles, "You're always studying stuff." 

"Of course," I say. "People are interesting. For instance, did you notice that even though this is a mixed club, the crowd has self-segregated? See?" I indicate a white group that has congregated near the left side of the bar; at the right side, the opposite has happened. "I'm interested to see if the dance floor is the same way." 

"I never thought about it that way before," Rick says. "That's a little . . . unsettling." 

"It's human nature," I say neutrally. "I recently read a paper on –" 

"Uh-uh," Rick says. He playfully touches a shushing finger to my lips and then replaces it with his lips. "No 'papers' or 'studies' or 'scientific findings.' That stuff may be fun for you, but the only thing I want to discover tonight is the bottom of a bottle of beer." 

"Sorry, darling," I say teasingly. I kiss him again. "Get me a cosmopolitan while you're up?" 

He feigns feeling put-upon and heads for the bar. I wait until he's gone to turn on the light. Ever since he turned it off, I have been morbidly curious about what would happen if it were on. What sort of seedy characters would be drawn like moths to the thrall of a simple lightbulb and a woman alone in a dance hall? 

Minutes pass and the phone is still as a grave. I start to wonder if I am transmitting 'librarian' signals, even though my dress is as showy as any other woman's here – and anyway, I'm not a librarian anymore, I'm a professional Egyptologist associated with the best university system in the world, so I certainly don't care if some drugstore cowboy doesn't want to bother me. 

The table phone rings. 

"Oh, thank God," I say. I pick up the receiver. "Hello?" 

"Looking for a good time, old mum?" a familiar voice on the line says. 

"Jonathan!" I exclaim. 

"Hallo, love," he says. 

"Where are you?" 

"Next to the bar, talking to something the cat dragged in." 

I see him now; Rick is standing next to him, eyeing me with amusement. I shrug impishly and turn off the table light. He chuckles and turns back to the bar. 

"I thought you were still touring," I say. 

"Do you think I'd leave you two to divvy up my part of the treasure?" 

"I think I've just been insulted." 

"Don't be silly -- it's not as if I don't trust you." He indicates Rick's turned back; my brother's opinions of Rick apparently haven't changed since we parted in Egypt. "Did you miss me?" he asks. 

"For all of two seconds," I tease. "Come over here so I can get off this silly thing – the mouthpiece reeks of alcohol." 

"All right, keep your stockings fastened," he says and hangs up 

I'm surprised how glad I am to see someone who knows me as well as Jonathan does. Since the fortune, career opportunity, changing homes, and Rick, I suddenly realize that the suddenly hectic pace of my life has been a tad isolating. 

Jonathan lopes across the room, makes eyes at a tall blonde, and reaches my table. I stand and hug him soundly. 

"Hey there," he says, "What's this? You saw me a few weeks ago." 

I kiss his cheek and give him another squeeze. "I know. How was Berlin?" 

Jonathan spins me a yarn about drunken carousal and German society's lack of inhibition, about a third of which I believe. "It's completely different since the war," he says. "Apparently, since the kaiser got the kibosh, anything goes." 

"Sounds like your playground," I tease. 

"The devil himself couldn't throw a better party," he revels. "How're things with you and the outlaw," Jonathan asks, chucking his thumb in Rick's direction. 

I purse my lips. "Rick and I are just fine, thank you." 

"Oh? Haven't blown up anything, then?" he says casually. "No raising of the dead and other mistreatments of my baby sister?" 

I roll my eyes. "You don't seriously dislike him," I say. "You couldn't _not_ like someone who is mostly responsible for your scandalous wealth." 

"As well as yours, my dear," he says. He takes a sip of his amber drink. "All right, I admit, I don't quite hate him." 

"Thank you." 

"Doesn't mean I want him sniffing around this family." 

"Jonathan, for goodness sake, you sound almost jealous that someone else is taking up my time." 

"Don't be daft! Why—" 

"Whew, what a line," Rick interrupts. He hands me an enormous glass. 

"Dear lord, what _is_ this?" I say. 

"You asked for a cosmopolitan, right?" Rick says. 

"Yes, but . . ." I realize I don't have a leg to stand on, considering my _stunning_ behavior that night at Hamunaptra. But dear lord – "It's gigantic!" 

"Not quite like sherry with Grandmother, hm, Evie?" Jonathan says. 

"You told me you never drink," Rick says to me. 

Laughter rattles in Jonathan's chest so badly he chokes on his drink. My eyes grow wide in horror; embarrassment has got my tongue. When he can breathe, he says, "Giving him the innocent act, eh, Evie?" 

Rick is trying hard not to laugh and using his own glass to hide it. My cheeks are burning. I mentally review a few Egyptian hexes that I have full ability to inflict upon my brother. 

"Anyway," Rick comes to my rescue, "how about a toast?" 

"Let's," Jonathan says, swallowing his laughter. 

Rick raises his glass. "To making it out of Egypt alive and better than ever." 

"Here, here," Jonathan says. We clink and drink. "And to Europe being completely uninfluenced by that American prohibition nonsense." The men happily lift glasses to that. 

"How'd Germany treat ya?" Rick asks Jonathan. 

Jonathan spins the same tale he told me, though Rick seems more credulous. 

"And I saw Nathan," Jonathan says to me. 

"Who's that?" Rick asks casually. 

I stir the skewered piece of lime around my glass. "Our father," I answer evenly. 

Rick looks back and forth between we Carnahans, questions in his eyes. He doesn't know what to say because I haven't quite gotten around to finishing the story that I started telling him in the desert. 

"How is he?" I ask. 

"Oh, you know," Jonathan says with his customary annoyance. I realize that the glass he's holding isn't his first that night. "Busy. He's always . . . busy." 

"Where is he living now?" I ask. 

"France," Jonathan says with a pout. He can be so childish sometimes. 

"Did you talk to him?" I ask pointedly. 

"He didn't ask about you, if that's what you mean." 

"I only meant --" 

"Evie, you were too young to remember –" 

"Jonathan, this really isn't the time." My goodness, of all people to bring this up in front of, he picks my boy-friend of one month. 

"Remember what?" Rick asks cheerily. I send him a look of annoyance for exacerbating the topic. He smiles a little, as if all this is a great game. The men in my life are trying to drive me mad. 

I sip my drink to avoid Jonathan's gaze. "Well. From your letters, it sounded like you had a lovely tour," I say. 

Rick looks from me to Jonathan and back again, like he's watching a tennis tournament. "Yeah, more fun than we had," he jokes, apparently deciding to help me curb my brother's loose tongue. 

"I'm making the most wonderful progress with the artifacts we've studied," I say. "I'm going to knock the Bembridge Scholars on their backsides next week when I deliver my presentation on Hamunaptra. _I'll _show _them_ who's lacking the experience!" 

My guys are less than impressed. 

"Been keeping herself locked up in that museum, then?" Jonathan asks. 

"I pry her out to see the sun once in a while," Rick says. 

"Ooh, you two," I say, annoyed. "You two may only be impressed with victories accomplished with guns and fists, but I'll have you know that my work is of great importance to the understanding of –" 

"Dead people," Jonathan interrupts. 

"Well. Yes," I admit. 

"To dead people!" Rick toasts diplomatically. 

"And their many benefactions!" Jonathan crows. 

They toss back their drinks again; I smile. They really do care about me. 

"Would you like to dance?" Rick asks. Thankfully, he ignores my brother's subtle waving of the hands. 

"I'd love to," I grin. 

As Rick and I leave the table, Jonathan whispers to me, "Try not to kill him." I send him a scathing look. 

* Continued in Part 3 


	3. Part 3

"Since We Came Home" 

Part 3 

After the riotous fast songs earlier, the bass-heavy beat of a slow number trickles like spring rain. All around us, couples fall into enrapturement with their sweeties. Rick wraps his arm around my waist and cradles my right hand against his chest. I loop my arm around his neck. The last time I danced like this was with a freshie at college; he had sweaty palms and his nose whistled. 

"This is nice," I say. 

"Mmhm," he murmurs. 

I step on his foot. 

"Sorry." 

Rick winces but shrugs it off. 

"Do you go dancing often?" I ask. 

"Not too many mixers in the Cairo prison system. There was that one time they dressed up a camel like an Arabian dancing girl. But you don't want to hear about that." 

"I should think not." 

"I was kidding, Evelyn." 

"Oh. I know." 

I don't follow Rick when he turns and step on his foot again. 

"Sorry," I say again. 

Rick puts half a foot of air between us. "I'm getting the feeling you don't dance much, either." 

I bristle. "I – well--" I've got nothing. "No. I don't. I suppose I'm not the most talented dance partner you've ever had." 

"No. But you're the prettiest." 

I flit my hand in a 'go on with you' gesture. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. O'Connell." 

"Doesn't stop me from trying," he says, and kisses me. "What was that about back there, with you and your brother?" 

"About my father?" 

"I've never seen him get upset about anything, other than his money or his booze." 

I consider the least detailed and most evasive phrasing. "For someone as obsessively focused on the present as Jonathan is, he's awfully stubborn when it comes to forgetting the past." 

"What happened?" Rick is looking down at me with concern. I realize with a start that he isn't asking out of scandalous curiosity; he's worried about me, about some upset in my past. I'm not used to someone wanting to know all the little details of my life, not even Jonathan. 

"One night, when Jonathan was eleven and I was five, my mother took him to a picture show. It was a special night, just for Jonathan and Mother, because Jonathan was going back to boarding school the next day. He so disliked being sent away." 

"Was your father living with you then?" 

"Yes, of course he was." 

"Oh. You just made it sound like, I dunno, it was just you two and your mom." 

"My father . . . how to put this? He liked having children, but he didn't much like children. Does that make sense?" 

"Sure." 

I want to ask if it makes sense because Rick shares that opinion, but the last thing I want to do is give the impression that I'm compiling a review of his child rearing abilities. 

"So, driving home from the picture, a motorcar spun out of control on a mud puddle and hit their buggy," I list the facts. 

"Oh, wow," he says sympathetically. 

"Jonathan broke a bone or two, but he recovered. Mother didn't." 

"God, I'm sorry." 

"It was a long time ago," I say. "I think Jonathan's problem is that he blames our father." 

"Why?" 

"Oh, it isn't as if he's being sensible. I think he's angry that Father couldn't replace Mother. Father loved us dearly, but he was wrapped up in his own loss." Though I thought I had moved beyond this, I feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes. I lean a little closer to Rick, feeling the warmth radiating off his broad, sturdy chest. "He simply didn't know what to do with two children if Mother wasn't there to – to do the things that mothers do. Father tried, but eventually he sent Jonathan back to school and me to my great-aunt. I've only talked to my father a few times in the past few years; the last I heard, he was living alone in Spain." 

Rick's hand trails a soft path up my back and down again. 

"It really was a long time ago," I say with my head on his strong shoulder. 

"I'm still sorry," he says. 

The corners of my mouth turn up. "Thank you for caring about me." 

"Anytime." 

Arms wrapped around each other, we sway to the music, not even moving our feet. 

At length, Rick says, "I don't remember my parents. They died of a fever when I was four." 

"Oh. I am sorry." 

"Yeah, tragedy all around, huh?" 

"Did you have any brothers or sisters?" 

"Ah, let me think." 

"You have to think?" 

"Well, eleven is a lot of people to keep track of." 

"_Eleven?_" I gape. 

"Plus the two babies who didn't make it." 

I total the sums in my head: all told, Rick's mother was pregnant for more than ten years of her life! 

"We were a farmer's family," he explains. "They need sons at harvest time and girls to help with all the housework." 

"Jonathan and I could never even learn to share things between just the two of us," I say, horrified at the idea of nine more Jonathans pulling my braids and throwing my dolls on the roof. 

Rick smiles. "You get used to fighting for your territory." 

"I would imagine so." 

"So, anyway, my oldest sister kept the farm running while we kids were little, but we every year we sold off it off, bit by bit. I was just another mouth, so when I got old enough, I joined the Legion." 

"Where are they now?" 

"I dunno. Two of 'em grew up and moved out before I was born, I never really knew them. Even when I was young, we weren't like you and Jonathan, all buddy-buddy." 

I smile to think that despite our bickering, Jonathan and I appear to others to be 'buddies.' 

"Don't you talk to any of them now?" I couldn't imagine not talking to Jonathan at least once a week. We go to dinner and parties together, we tell each other everything. He knew I was interested in Rick before I did. 

"Nah," Rick says. "I don't know what I'd say to them." 

I muse, "My family always seemed so small when I was little, but I was never lonely." 

Rick laughs. "It wasn't as bad as you make it sound! I liked them. I just didn't make a lot of attachments." 

I wonder if that habit of avoiding attachment has followed him to adulthood. I may not have a lot of people in my life, but I'd hold on to the ones I do with my last breath. 

I see a finger tap Rick on the shoulder. It's Jonathan, asking via male code if he may cut in. 

"Think you can survive without me for a bit?" Rick jokes. 

"My heart will break every moment you're gone," I deadpan. 

Rick hands me off to my brother. The slow song ends and the music picks up again. Couples begin to leap about like Chinese acrobats; in the center of the room, a pair of feet flick up into the air. I suddenly become stiff as a poker. 

"Do you know how to dance like that?" I ask my brother as quietly as possible. 

Jonathan laughs. "Don't worry, pet, I couldn't toss you up in the air if I wanted to." 

"Ha ha," I say, still terrified of looking foolish and possibly breaking an ankle – mine or someone else's – in the process. 

"Just follow my lead," Jonathan says. 

He holds me at arms' length so I can watch his feet; it's a one-and-two-and step, simple enough without any of the fancy stuff. To my delight, I manage to land on the beat more times than not. 

"Not so hard, eh?" he says. "Just like when we were kids." 

I laugh. Jonathan used to invent goofy steps and get me to do them with him. We looked foolish, of course, but anything to shake life into a great-aunt's birthday party. 

"Where did you learn this?" I shout over the music. 

"From a sweet, lovely Parisian lady of the evening," he answers with a lopsided grin. 

I roll my eyes. I never know whether or not to believe him when he says things like that, and I would rather not think too much about it. 

"Ready for something more complicated?" Jonathan says. 

I shake my head, but suddenly the room spins around. I catch a brief view of the ceiling before Jonathan sets me right. I hold on to his shoulder for dear life until the room stops whirling. 

"Fun?" he asks. 

"Don't do that again!" I gasp. Though I'm grinning at the thrill. 

"You loved it," he says. 

"Let's try that," I say, indicating a couple near us. 

Jonathan and I more or less copy their kick-step manoeuvre, except I crash into him at the twist. 

"Sorry!" I laugh, gasping for breath. 

Jonathan pretends to be in pain. "Maybe you should stick to the basics." 

"I think I'm doing smashingly for my first try!" I say hotly. 

The song ends and the band strums up something with a tad less jump. Couples around us abandon tumbling tricks for dancing with which I'm more familiar. 

Under the quieter beat, Jonathan says, "I'm sorry about –" he nods in Rick's direction. 

"I know," I say. 

"Still mad?" 

I attempt a scowl. "If I was really mad, I wouldn't be dancing with you," I say. 

"Good point," he says. "You and he, ah, seemed to have something important to say to each other during that slow number." 

I nod. "I told him about Mum, and you, and Father." 

"Ah." 

"I wish . . ." I trail off. 

Jonathan nods, knowing as he always does what I'm trying not to say. We dance in silence, just the two of us and our shared memories, as it's always been. 

"Pray tell," Jonathan asks coyly, "how _are_ things with you and Rick, seriously?" 

I smile. "I don't know. Sometimes I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about, let alone thinking. Sometimes he's completely infuriating! And then he'll say something sweet, and I'll be confused as to whether he's a decent man inside a scoundrel or a scoundrel who is trying to be a decent man." 

Jonathan cocks his head and smiles. "That's about the most charming description of the power of love as I've ever heard." 

"I didn't say I'm in love with him," I say quickly. "It's not as if I'd like to be wandering about moony-eyed." 

"Evelyn, you couldn't be the head in the clouds type if you wanted to be." 

"I'm not convinced of that," I say grimly, as if love is a disease. "The other day at work, I was recording the births and deaths of the Ham'ut dynasty and found that Hamuput's birthday is exactly two days and nineteen hundred years before Rick's. Which completely distracted me because I was suddenly thrown into a tangent of wondering what to give him for his birthday, because what do you give a man who can buy anything he wishes at a whim?" I say, quite vexed. 

"A quandary surely faced by Hamuput's queen," Jonathan says. 

"Indeed." 

"Perhaps, when you had the chance, you should have asked Anck-su-namun what she gave her husband." 

"I believe it was a dagger in the chest." 

"Hm. Well. Suppose that won't do," Jonathan says reluctantly. 

"Quite," I say. 

"You look good, my dear. Love looks good on you," he says. "You should look like that more often." 

I feel my face growing warm. "I'm not planning my wedding just yet. I only can say with certainty that . . . I'm happy." I look up at the raised bar area and see Rick leaning over the banister, watching me. I toss him a wave and a smile. "He's really . . . splendid." 

Jonathan makes a face. "Really? He's so . . . American." 

"He's fun to argue with," I correct. 

"Oh, well that explains everything!" 

I can't hold back my grin. 

* 

Continued in part four. 


	4. Part 4

"Since We Came Home"   
Part 4

From up by the bar, I watch Evelyn dance with her brother. She almost clobbered him earlier during the fast song, having a bully time of it, not caring who saw her. 

A girl like that, you know doesn't have a vampish bone in her body; it doesn't even occur to her to play games. She's the most truly honest soul I've ever met. Which is probably why I can't figure her out. 

"Hello." A devastating beauty in a red dress glides up to me. She's got a Spanish accent like ocean waves and chocolate eyes. Her leg is pressed against mine. 

I glance quickly in Evelyn's direction as a hundred situations run through my mind – _maybe she won't mind . . . or find out_ – before reality descends like rain on a campfire. 

"Sorry, sweetheart," I tell the magnificent stranger, "I'm here with someone." 

"¿Es la verdad?" She pouts her luscious red lips. 

"She drives me up the wall sometimes, but she's something special and she's the first girl to think the same about me. So if I want to hold on to her," I say reluctantly, "I gotta behave." 

Miss Señorita Devistina catches the drift and slinks away to some guy with better sense than me. 

After another song, I head back down the stairs to reclaim my girl. Jonathan turns his roving eye to the many unattached lovelies decorating the edge of the dance floor. There's more drinks and dancing, and music and fun, before Evelyn's nose is glowing and she says her shoes are killing her. 

We find Jonathan – surprisingly, attached to the same woman he found over an hour ago – and Evelyn presses a promise for lunch out of him before we say goodbye. And then we're out in the cool night, walking because the cabbies knocked off an hour ago, me half carrying Evelyn because those dumb shoes are rubbing holes in her feet. 

"Did you have fun?" 

She looks up at me, shining face framed by messy hair. "It was wonderful," she says. 

* 

Continued in Intermission 


	5. Intermission

"Since We Came Home"   
Intermission

  


  


Back at the club, Jonathan has been dancing with an absolutely striking young woman for the better part of the evening. Not only is she beautiful, he thinks, but for the past hour her quick wit has made for stunning conversation. 

_There's just something about her_, Jonathan thinks, _some combination of magnetism and grace and all that good womanly stuff_. 

"Would you like to go to dinner tomorrow?" Jonathan asks, and immediately wonders why. He can't remember the last time he spoke those words in that combination to a woman. 'Would you like to come over for a nightcap,' sure, that's what you're supposed to ask women whom you meet in dance halls. 

"Oh, gosh," she says, obviously trying to find a way to back out. 

"Well, if you're not interested," Jonathan says. It takes him a minute to assign a name to the sudden sinkhole in his chest: disappointment. He really wanted to see her on another night, in a different place, in a different context. How odd. Jonathan starts to pull away, finding an excuse to leave her. 

"Not in dinner. But we could go back to my apartment." She turns and walks away, knowing he'll follow. 

Jonathan stares after her retreating (_sculpted, porcelain_) back, stunned. _Girls aren't supposed to say that!_ he thinks. 

He quickly gets moving so as not to loose her in the crowd. 

* 

Continued in part 5. 


	6. Part 5

"Since We Came Home"   
Part 5

  


Evelyn reappears refreshed and radiant, barefoot with her hair loose in the back. I recognize her dress as the one the Arabian shopkeep women had dressed her up in in Egypt; I guess that's the Evelyn version of 'slipping into something more comfortable.' 

"Care for something to drink?" she asks. 

"Yeah, sure," I say. "What've you got?" 

"Some Darjeeling from that market in Egypt, and good old English stuff." 

I'd never heard of a drink called a darjeeling. "What's that?" 

"Tea, darling," she says, as if everyone considers tea a nightcap. She lights the little hotel-sized burner and fills the kettle with fresh water. 

"Uh, whatever you're having," I say. 

While she's waiting for the water to boil, I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist. The slinky Arabian fabric tickles my arms. Evie leans against my chest and reaches up to cup my chin. I lean down and kiss the juncture of her neck and shoulder, eliciting the expected murmur of appreciation. 

She turns around in my arms and kisses me. Passion flares; the kiss grabs us. My lips follow a path down her throat while her fingers rake my hair. 

The kettle screams. 

Evie comes to her senses and turns away. 

I sigh in frustration. She ignores me and serenely pours the tea. I notice that flush in her cheeks, though. If she's so hot and bothered, why does she keep pushing me away? She wasn't so distant that night in the desert. Jonathan slept on one side of the camels and us on the other, and no one had any problem with that. I'd like to argue about this, but one thing I've figured out is that trying to convince Evelyn to do anything, in any context, is likely to produce the opposite effect. 

"Would you like to sit on the balcony?" Evelyn asks. 

"Sure," I say. 

"It's a lovely night," she says. "Though I do miss a clear sky." 

"Yeah, I don't think I've seen the sun since we got here." 

Evelyn curls up next to me on the loveseat. Which kind of bugs me. She doesn't want to neck, but she'll drive me crazy, all warm against the entire left side of my body? I wonder if she even knows what teasing is. 

"What're you doing tomorrow?" I ask. 

"I'm afraid I have a pile of translations sitting on my desk waiting for me." 

"On Saturday?" This is the second weekend in a row she's worked. She spends most nights in the museum, too, while I rattle around the hotel. I've never been to London, so I was looking forward to a guided tour from a pretty native. 

"I really need to get to work if I want to make my presentation next week," she says apologetically. 

"Oh. Yeah, I understand." 

Evie smiles. "But on Sunday, we could go to the Easter service at Saint Paul's. I used to see it every year when I was a girl, but I haven't been there in years." Her eyes are shining with childhood memory. I imagine a tiny Evie in a frilly little-girl dress, awed by a gigantic, ancient cathedral. 

"You want to take a date to church?" I ask, just teasing. Mostly. She does say odd stuff sometimes. 

Evelyn flushes three shades of red and pulls away from me. "I – I just thought. . . . Well, I'm sorry, Mr. O'Connell; I suppose your usual fare spend their Sundays in backroom dice games." She's angry because she's embarrassed, that much I can figure out. Why, I couldn't guess. 

"Sorry. I just don't do church," I explain. 

She's still bristling. I put my arm around her to encourage her to lean back against me. I kiss her temple, hoping to soothe whatever chagrin she's feeling. 

"We'll do something else on Sunday, then," she says. "I'm afraid I'm going to be dreadfully busy next week." She perks up. "Do you remember that dig I told you about, in Wales? The Oxford Celtic Society claims they know of a Druid mound that's rife with artifacts from before the Romans landed." 

"I thought you were their Egypt girl." 

"Well, yes, I admit the subject matter could be more interesting. But a few weeks mucking about in the dirt, and I'll come home with field experience that will show the Bembridge Scholars that I'm a valuable mind, no matter what they send me to study. If this presentation next week goes well, I think Mr. Cooke will ask me to head this dig with him. Wouldn't that be lovely?" She's all smiles and sparkling eyes. 

"Yeah. Great." She's taking off for Wales now. I've never been to Wales, not even really sure which part of the island it's on. Hey, I can take a hint. I've got things waiting for me in Cairo. There's a tab to settle at that casbah, for instance. 

"I have a team to assemble, and a dreadful amount of reading to do!" she continues. "Digging looks simple enough, but I need to know what to look for. All this on top of my Hamunaptra presentation." 

"I guess a lot of academic types will be going on this, huh?" I say. "Guys with degrees. Guys with jobs," I mutter. 

"I should say so, yes. Mr. Cooke has recently published his four-year study on monoliths in southern Britain, proposing that Stonehenge may actually be a full _two thousand_ years older than it was thought to be!" 

"Huh," I say. I didn't follow after 'monolith.' 

She studies me curiously. "Are you upset about something?" 

"No, of course not. Why should I be angry?" I say sarcastically. "Sounds like you've got lots to do. Don't mind the guy who took you out to Hamunaptra, saved your life, and hauled all those boxes of treasure to the museum. Hey, there's always more of that gold back in Egypt." 

Evelyn stands up; snuggle time is over. "I don't believe you! No, strike that, of course I do." 

"Huh?" 

"You men are all the same! You can't stand to see a woman on her own two feet! If you think for a minute that I'm going to give up my career to – to follow you around the world from one fetid drinking establishment to the other –" 

"I don't remember asking you to follow me anywhere. And, by the way, 'drinking establishment'?" 

"Then what are you so jealous about?" she asks. 

"I'm not jealous." 

"Ooh, no, don't give me that. " She points a finger at me. "You're _something_. Every time I bring up my work, you get into a snit. Just like every other man who likes his women dumb and hanging on his arm. This is why I stay away from the lot of you." 

"I'm not jealous!" I snap. "Look – you go to work. I stay home. You don't think there's something weird about that?" 

"I'm _terribly_ sorry that my life plans make you uncomfortable!" 

"That's not what I meant!" I check my tone before continuing. "All right, I admit, you're right – a little!" I say before she can get wound up again. "This is a weird situation. But I could get over it, I really could. I could call this a vacation, 'cause I sure as hell could use one. Except I don't _want_ to make this a vacation." 

"For heaven's sake, why not?" 

"I just--" It takes me a minute to figure out _what_ I want, exactly. She waits, looking hurt. "I thought we'd be in this together." 

"We are." 

"Uh-uh. The museum guys are all over you, I'm just the combination pack animal and tour guide. Sometimes I wish we hadn't left Hamunaptra." 

She looks at me like I just told her I have the ability to shoot Haley's Comet out my ass. 

"You wish . . .?" 

"I don't mean it like that." She's making my head get all muddled. "Well, yeah, I did. I miss you and me, together, working towards a common goal." 

"Having our lives threatened." 

"Beside the point." 

Evelyn's eyebrows are still pinched together in confusion. Suddenly the clouds clear and her face lights up. "So what you're saying is, you wish we could . . . work together?" 

"Well . . ." It sounds dumb when she says it like that. 

"And you want to go on this dig with me?" she asks. 

"Do you want me to?" 

"Yes, of course I do!" she says. 

"Then yeah, I want to go." 

"Oh!" She attacks me with a hug that knocks us back onto the loveseat. "Ugh," I say as she lands on me. I hang onto her and she settles into my lap. 

"You'll love it," she says. "A dig is just like camping -- except much less fun and rather a lot more dirty." 

"As long as it isn't a hundred and fifteen in the shade at noon, I can take anything." 

"More like freezing wind chills at night." 

"Oh. Well, that'll be something new." I'm already thinking up lines that will convince her that two people in a sleeping bag are better than one. 

"Indeed." She kisses me. "You'll fit right in. Lots of married couples go together." 

What? "What?" 

She slides off my lap onto the seat next to me. "Oh, there goes that look again," she says, annoyed. 

"Evelyn –" 

"Don't start," she says. "I only meant that a lot of _couples_ go together." 

"Oh. Good," I say. 

"There it is then," she says. 

"What is?" Is she talking Egyptian? I swear to God, it isn't my fault I can't follow this conversation. 

She looks over the balcony, out into the dark city. She's chewing on her lower lip like she's trying not to cry. What'd I say? 

Finally, quietly, she says, "What do you expect of me?" 

"Huh? Nothin'," I say. 

"Women in general, then. The women you date. What do . . ." she trails off. 

And then, like a brick to the head, it hits me. I know exactly what's been upsetting her. It isn't the marriage thing. 

"Honey, can I ask you something personal?" I say quietly, like she's a deer in the woods I'm trying not to startle. 

"Yes, of course," she says distantly and politely, still looking beyond me into the night. 

I touch her arm to get her to look at me; I need to see those wide, worried green eyes. 

Carefully, I say, "Have you, um, been with," I emphasize the phrase to make it the biblical sense, "any guy, ever?" 

She swallows, blinks, looks away briefly. Evie's an awful liar; I know her well enough that I can see she's gearing up to tell one now. 

But then she gives up the act and, with the candid composure I've seen her wield so rarely, says, "No." 

Treading lightly, I continue, "And it, um, bugs you, right? That I have. Been with. Um, women." This is so weird. Page one of the male code says to never, ever be honest in a conversation like this. I _should _feel like I'm two steps from the doghouse or something, but I don't. I don't want to just placate her, I want to get rid of whatever worries she's got stewing. 

Evie shrugs and kind of nods. 

"Honey, I'm not going to try to explain my past," I say kindly. 

"Please don't," she says. 

"Then neither should you." 

She looks at me sharply. 

"I mean," I say, "it's not a contest or a prerequisite or something." 

She chuckles at that. 

"Look, you're hardly the only girl in the world who feels this way. It's more S.O.P. than you probably think." 

"S.O.P?" 

"Standard operating procedure. I mean, it's not like I score with –" Oops. 

"Oh, what a charming turn of phrase!" She isn't really angry anymore, just embarrassed. 

"I didn't mean it that way," I growl in frustration. "I like _you._ I like you so much I don't care about--" she tips an eyebrow at me. "Well, okay, we both know that's a lie, but you know what I mean." 

"No, I don't." She fixes me with a hard look. "What _does_ that mean?" 

"It means . . ." What's the polite, nice guy way to put this? "You don't have to worry about me." 

"That's . . . good to hear." Her cheeks are flushed, but she's smiling. 

"What's the point of doing it if you're not having fun?" I say reasonably. 

She blushes harder but looks pleased. "Thank you, Rick. That's a very . . . considerate attitude." 

I shrug. "I try." 

"I'm sorry for hollering." 

"You're cute when you holler." 

"Was that a compliment?" 

I kiss her. Her lips are soft and caressing; they're wonderful. She's wonderful. I hear myself say against her lips, "I love you." 

Evie pulls away and looks me hard on in the face. "You love me?" She looks mad. Not the reaction I was going for. Not that I know what kind of reaction I was going for. I wasn't 'going for' any reaction – the words just fell out of my head. 

"Um," I say. _Gotta say something! Gotta make it good!_

"You just told me you love me," Evelyn says. 

"Yeah, I did that, didn't I?" 

"You say that, what does it mean?" 

"What do you mean? What else could it mean?" I have no idea what it means. 

"You've barely known me for a month. Love means commitment, Mr. O'Connell." 

"Yeah, I guess." Oh, God, it does, doesn't it? If she'd hush up a minute, I could think. It isn't so much that I said it. I meant it. I think I meant it. I think I may have thought it once or twice before. 

"You guess?" she says. 

"I don't know!" I say under her scrutiny. Geeze, the Egyptian police weren't so persistent. "I didn't consult the plans for the rest of my life before I said it." 

She turns away, huffy. "I never know when you're serious. I never know what really matters to you." 

"Sounds like you don't trust me." 

"I don't _know_ you. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. Fall for the first man who saves my life. Brilliant; just capital. How long before you're tired of the – the mousy librarian and move on to greener pastures?" 

Criminy, how much does a guy have to do --! "Evelyn, I got myself pummeled by the undead for you. I took a bunch of guys back out to that desert – the last place I ever wanted to see again -- knowing some of them may not make it back, to rescue you. And, last but not least, I'm still having this conversation with you!" 

She turns around and look at me, still angry but curious. 

"Look, I don't do – this." I wave my hand in the air between us. "This serious conversation thing we're doing right now? Anyone else, I'd have bailed an hour ago. So believe me when I tell you that me, sitting here, talking to you with you crying and yelling at me, _means_ something. It means I'm serious. I love you." I do. I don't regret having said it, even though it's like jumping off a bridge. That's what loving Evelyn is like – jumping off a big, scary bridge. Good thing I'm a thrill-seeker. 

"Really?" she sniffles. 

"Yeah." 

"Ohh you," she sighs. 

She leans in and kisses me. I pull her close, linger over her lips, let my hands do a little roaming. She doesn't push me away this time; I feel her little hands on my chest, doing a little exploration of their own. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her onto my lap. . . . 

* 

Continued in part 6. 


	7. Part 6

"Since We Came Home"   
Part 6

The last time my eyes were open, the moon was well above the buildings that are now carving chunks out of it. 

"We'd better stop," I say against Rick's lips. 

"Seriously?" he says into the nape of my neck. 

"Afraid so." 

"Yeah, all right," he grumbles, and puts some space between him and me. 

_That wasn't so difficult_, I muse. It's one thing to indulge in less than proprietary behavior when you're in the middle of the desert; but until tonight, I didn't want to get anything of that sort started again. 

In books, there are two kinds of men who fall in love with the heroine: the chaste lover who loves from afar, and the courageous lover. The authors assume their female readers desire the courageous man, whose passion is so strong that he becomes incensed with the heroine refuses his advances. I dreaded seeing my Rick turn into that that sort of lover, leaving me to feel like Cinderella at midnight when the coach and footmen turn into ordinary pumpkin and mice. 

"Guess I should go," he says gentlemanly, but his heart isn't in his words. 

I agree in kind. 

He rests his arm across the back of the loveseat; I lean my head on his shoulder. 

We watch the lanterns from a motorcar below move like ghosts down the dark, silent street. Mist hangs in the air, conjuring the perception that we're back in the desert, alone together on the blank sea of sand. I miss warm Egypt. I wonder if I'll ever be able to think of it and not be reminded of . . . 

"I've been studying his myth," I say. 

"Imhotep?" It is one of many times Rick has said something in step with my unspoken thoughts. I take heart that perhaps we aren't so mismatched as we seem. 

"It's astounding, the lengths he went for love. Sneaking behind the pharaoh's back, conspiring to launch a coup." 

"I'd do it." 

"You would?" 

"Sure. For someone I loved, who loved me." 

His intention does not go unnoticed. I am more than aware that I have not responded in kind to his earlier pronouncement. But the words are stuck. How can I firmly know if I love him? I have no experiences against which I can compare such a feeling and say, 'Yes, this is the same' or 'No, this is different.' 

"Well," I say because something must be said, "according to what I've read, there's absolutely no way he can be re-resurrected." 

"Glad to hear it." 

"It was an amazing stroke of luck that he was raised to begin with; us finding that book, and just happening to read the correct inscription." 

"Yeah, you've got some pretty astounding luck, there," he says affectionately. 

I think of the astronomical odds that brought Rick and I together – that Rick happened to have the key with him when my brother happened to choose Rick's pocket to pick; that we got to Rick at the jail less than a quarter of an hour before his sentence was to be carried out, that the rope didn't break his neck…. 

The realization that had just one small variable been askew, Rick and I never would have met fills me with a dread akin looking down an abyss. The ache of mere 'what ifs' fill my soul so completely that I realize, in a flash, the truth. 

"I love you," I say. 

Rick looks down at me in surprise. Which is nothing compared to how I feel. Perhaps this is what love is: something that escapes planning or prediction, defies all higher contemplation, and simply _exists_. Something you can't go looking for, but rather wait for it to find you. 

"I just realized – I mean, it just came to me . . ." I can't explain it; I can only hope he understands. 

"Yeah, apparently this is the magic balcony of revelation," he says conversationally. 

"I love you," I say experimentally. It works. It fits. It's right. 

"I heard you the first time," he says. His blue eyes twinkle like stars over a desert sky. 

"Stop teasing and kiss me," I say. 

He does. 

* 

Continued in Epilogue 


	8. Epilogue

"Since We Came Home"   
Epilogue

Jonathan wakes in an unfamiliar bed. Miserably cheery sunlight greets him on the other side of his puffy eyelids. 

He drapes his elbow over his eyes to bring blessed darkness to his pounding head. He reaches sightlessly for the woman whose bed he now remembers ending up in last night. 

There's no one there. 

Jonathan raises his elbow and inch or two and peeks at the room. Empty. He notices that the knickers that had landed on the foot-side bedpost are gone, too. After some early-morning grumbling, Jonathan finally drags himself out of the empty bed to find the room tidied. His clothes are piled neatly on a chair. 

He dresses and he ventures into the rest of the apartment to find it similarly vacant. 

_Maybe she's picking up the paper or something._

He pads in stocking feet across the cold floor to the little kitchen. There's lukewarm coffee on the stove, a lone scone in the breadbox, and a note. 

"'Had to dash'," Jonathan reads aloud, "'Had a great time last night. Help yourself to breakfast. Be seeing you, Samantha.'" 

Jonathan sets the piece of paper on the table and stares at it, as if he expects the thing to suddenly gain the power of speech and explain itself. He thinks, She's _supposed to be the one who wakes up alone and feeling . . . jilted?_

Astonished, he says, "This is new."   


End 

~*~ 

Feedback appreciated at annegirl11@juno.com. 

How will Evelyn juggle her first big break and her first real boyfriend? What wonders will our intrepid heroes discover in the ancient Celtic stronghold of Wales? Will Jonathan give up booze and vice for the love of a good woman? (Doubtful.) 

Find out the answers to these enthralling questions . . . whenever the hell I get the next story written. 

A/N: _The Mummy_ belongs to people who aren't me. This story written for love, not money. 


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